I am Tom Marvolo Riddle
by Jeniveela
Summary: "I will be the greatest wizard ever..." Follow the story of Tom Marvolo Riddle from his days at Hogwarts to his ascention to power as Voldemort...Please R
1. I Will be the Greatest Wizard Ever

A/N: This is my first fan fic posted here on FanFiction.Net. Please don't flame me too much. Please read and review.

This fan fic will be told through Tom Riddle's diary entries with flashbacks in between. Tom Riddle's diary entries appear in italics.

Oh yeah, usual disclaimer: I don't own anything Harry Potter, so please don't sue me. *cringes from the lawyer's wrath*

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Dear Diary,

I don't know why I bother to write in you. You're just a book, just a bunch of yellowed sheets of unevenly cut parchment bound in a leather cover. It is pointless to write in you. You can never respond to what I write here. You will never respond to anything I say, anything I write of…

He glanced up from the yellowed pages of his new diary to stare as he sometimes did. He stared at the other students passing him, walking past him, talking with their friends, laughing, and never once giving him a second glance as they went by. Nobody glanced at the boy sitting in the haven of the shadows near the castle wall as they walked through the courtyard, going to their classes. Nobody ever did. 

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…Perhaps that is why I should write in you. You can never respond to anything I write. You can't judge me like other people do. You can't criticize my opinions. You can't laugh at what I think like the others do. You can't sneer at me or how I feel like the others do when I'm around them…

I'm not good with people, diary. I suppose it's because I've never had anyone to really talk to. I've had no one to really confide in until I came to Hogwarts. I was always a shy, quiet, introverted child, wary of everyone and mistrusting and with good reason too. But now that I'm at Hogwarts and there are people all around me, I find that I cannot speak to them without feeling awkward, so I avoid them.

I suppose that is why I am an outcast… 

He glanced up from his writing again, though this time his knee bumped the bottle of ink that he had placed next to him on the ground to dip his quill into. The bottle of ink spilled over onto the ground, spreading out and covering it like a puddle of oil.

He cursed loudly as he hastened to pick up the bottle of ink as quickly as he could before too many people noticed. But for once, people did notice. Students nearby noticed and stared curiously at him as they passed, some of them slowing down slightly as they walked past. None stopped to help him, however. No one ever did…

When he collected his fallen ink bottle and righted it again, he looked quickly around to see if anyone had noticed. He saw the people gaping at him, some pointing, and a few snickering derisively. His fist clenched and his jaw tightened as he watched them staring at him. His face reddened, he returned to writing in his journal…

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I hate being an outcast. It's like being a ghost. Life goes on around you, and no one seems to see you. No one ever talks to you. No one ever even tries to be nice to you. No one cares.

The people that do notice you only laugh, mock, and ridicule you. I suppose it's better to be ignored than to be teased and scoffed at all the time…

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They hate me. All of them do. But I don't care. I don't need them. I never needed anyone to get where I am now. I didn't need my filthy Muggle father whose name I curse every day when I wake to this living nightmare.

And yet, at the same time, I am cursing myself, for my witch mother had the nerve to name me after him and my grandfather. I didn't need her either. She was a fool for loving a Mudblood, and she deserved what she got in the end. I didn't need her either.

I didn't need any of them to get where I am now. I am a prefect, and a top student. No one would have expected an orphan half-blood to get this far at Hogwarts. But I have. I have gone this far, and I will go much farther in life, much, much farther…

A rebellious, angry, passionate flame stirred within him as he wrote his next few lines. His hand shook with fury and ardor as his thoughts flowed out from his mind onto the page.

Yes, I will go much farther, and I will rise high above anyone's expectations for a poor, orphan half-blood. I will be extraordinary. Every person on this planet, whether they be Muggle or wizard, will come to know my name. They will respect me. They will all respect me. No one will laugh at me or sneer at me anymore if I work hard and make it to the top. __

Maybe I'll be an auror or the Minister of Magic or…No…That isn't high enough for me.I will be…

I will be the greatest wizard ever. I don't care how long I have to study or what magical arts I have to study. But I will be the greatest wizard ever, and you, my diary, will record my thoughts as I work toward this goal. I know that it is a high, almost impossible goal, but everyone has dreams…The only difference between my dreams and everyone else's dreams is that mine will come true. I'll make them a reality.

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If I ever told anyone else my goal, they would only laugh at me and mock me. They would think that it is a stupid goal, an impossible goal. But I don't care. I'll ignore them if I have to, and the obnoxious ones that I can't ignore, I'll…I'll deal witht them…

You will keep me sane from the mocking and cruelty of other students while I work toward this goal. You will preserve me, diary.

He paused, ready to conclude his diary entry. It was nearly time for him to go to class. Nearly every other student had left the courtyard already. 

Slowly, he lowered his quill to the paper and signed with a flourish:

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Tom Marvolo Riddle

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Please read and review. I'll post the next chapter if someone reviews! ;D


	2. Pity is a Weakness

Thanks to all those who reviewed! 

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Hermione's Twin Sister- Thanks for catching that mistake I made about calling Tom Riddle's father a Mudblood. I think I fixed it now…

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Isabella Jinx- Hmm…I was re-reading _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_ just awhile ago, and I found Tom Riddle described as 'handsome', a 'role model student', 'brilliant', and 'brave', but I didn't really find anything that described him as being popular. I could have missed something, though…Oh well…Voldy needs _some _friends or at least someone to talk to anyway, right? And that's sort of the reason for this chapter…

Usual disclaimer: IKNOW.

(I Know. Nothing Owned. Whatever.)

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He heard the loud, raucous, jubilant noises coming down the stairs to the Slytherin common room, which meant that the other students were coming back from dinner. He always left the Great Hall a few minutes before anyone else did. What was the point of eating in the Great Hall for half an hour or so when no one really spoke to you except to ask, "Hey, can you pass the rolls down here?"

No, he felt much more satisfied, much more productive, much more confident when he was sitting alone in the common room, reading or writing in his journal, which was what he was doing now.

His dark eyes glittered in the flickering, dancing flames crackling merrily in the stone hearth as he sat in a large, comfortable, leather armchair with ball-and-claw feet. He leaned over his diary on his lap and set freshly dipped quill to parchment as he began to write…

Dear Diary,

Something strange happened to me today…Somebody noticed me, and it wasn't just someone asking me to pass them down a tray of food at dinner or to ask me to throw another log in the fire. Someone honestly noticed me and knows that I exist…Strange, huh?

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Just when you think that you've met every type of person in the world that exists, and you think you've got the whole world (and everyone in it) figured out, you meet someone who proves you totally wrong.

It would happen like this…

It was snowing today, so classes were dismissed for the day…

He remembered it so well as he wrote it down. He knew that it was snowing even before he looked out the Slytherin boys' dormitory window because of the jovial shouts and sounds of people bustling around in the common room at seven o'clock in the morning.

Usually, most of the students had gone upstairs to the Great Hall by then. Usually, the common room was nearly empty before he gathered his school supplies and books in his bookbag and left for class. He always waited until nearly everyone was gone to leave the common room because he wanted to avoid confrontation with anyone else in the hectic morning bustle to gather schoolbooks and try to finish homework at the last minute. 

He didn't like being in the center of chaos, especially when that chaos was practically trampling over him in the mad rush to finish homework, find lost books, get to the Great Hall for breakfast, and then get to class.

But since there were herds of Slytherin students flocking in the common room, laughing and talking with their _friends _leisurely instead of rushing to get to class, he knew that classes must have been dismissed for the day because of snow. Class had never been dismissed for any other reason.

He wrote:

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Since there was no class for the day, I took it upon myself as a school prefect to go patrolling the castle, looking for loiterers or troublemakers. Just because there are no classes is no reason for anyone to be dawdling about in the hall or trying to pull off some juvenile pranks for mere amusement.

Even though class may not be in session, it is a prefect's duty to always be on the lookout for trouble making students. 

So I was patrolling the castle and feeling bored because there was no one to scold or deduct points from. An ordinary student will never know the joy a prefect feels out of deducting points from other students. It makes me feel powerful. It makes me feel as if I'm in control. It makes me feel as if I am in authority. It makes me feel…as if I'm 'getting back at' (so to speak) the same students who ignore me and scoff at me every day.

When I flaunt my power as a prefect, students aren't so quick to smirk at me like they usually do. 

But since there was no one for me to chastise or write up for punishment, I was just strolling the castle. I suppose I could have been written up for loitering…but I never loiter! I am a prefect, and it is a prefect's right to patrol the castle as he or she wishes.

No, I do not loiter. I call it 'patrolling the castle'.

Since there was nothing better to do, I walked outside to the courtyard, the courtyard that students pass through every day to go to their classes. I prefer to spend my studying time outside in the courtyard because few students come out here to study since it's usually cold or chilly at best. Students only come out here to pass through when they have to, and that is about it.

I was standing out there in the cold, the icy, biting breeze making my loose, black, silk robes ripple as it whistled past. I leaned against the cold, stone, outer wall of the castle, my arms folded across my chest as I stared blankly off into space in the empty courtyard.

I've always liked the cold. I don't know why. I've always preferred cold or rainy days to warm and sunny days. I love the sense of freedom the cold gives me when I'm outside. Its frigid, savage bite chases away most other people and leaves me to myself. I can endure cold temperatures unlike any other person I've ever met. 

I suppose it's because I'm used to it…After all, the Muggle orphanage was never particularly warm, both in temperature and in nature to me…

Tom glanced up from his diary. The grandfather clock in the Slytherin common room with the moon and sun hands struck midnight. The common room was now empty. The flames in the fireplace had long since sputtered and died down to a few mere glowing embers in the dim common room.

But he ignored the late hour, ignored the growing darkness in the common room, and ignored how cold the common room had suddenly become as he hunched down and leaned over the diary again. 

He would go to bed after he finished his diary entry and read a few passages in his books for Divination. He didn't mind staying up late to study, read, and write. It helped him to get ahead in his studies despite his lack of sleep. He was accustomed to it. 

He would ignore the darkness in the common room as he dipped his quill in the bottle of ink set on the polished mahogany end table beside the armchair he sat in. He squinted his eyes to see better in the dark, and his eyes quickly readjusted to the low levels of light.

He would ignore the coldness of the room, for the cold was his friend, though it was the fiend of most other people. He wouldn't add wood to the fire before he retired either, although it was clearly within his reach in the basket beside the fireplace. He would let the fire die completely and let the common room become freezing cold, woe to the students who woke in the morning and were greeted by the frigid, icy atmosphere of the common room.

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They can all freeze to death for all I care, Tom thought bitterly as he began to write with fast, angry strokes of his quill.

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Yes, but isn't that what you thought earlier too? a mocking, cynical voice whispered in his head.

He shook his head and went back to writing again.

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But my peaceful trance in the icy courtyard was broken by a piercing, neverending shriek. It sounded like someone was slaughtering a banchee, a particularly loud, frightened banchee whose shrill shrieks were magnified a hundred times by the sonorus _spell._

I was irritated to say the least, at being disturbed, but I went toward the source of the shrieks anyway. I was curious- not concerned -about who was shrieking at this early hour so loudly. 

I was thinking as I went toward the location where I thought the screamer was located, "No matter how bad things are for you, it can't possibly be so bad as to cause you to scream as if you were being murdered…unless you are actually being murdered, of course. Look at me. Look at my life. I've had an awful life to say the least, but I don't go nutter and start screaming my bloomin' head off…In fact, if I were being murdered, I probably wouldn't be screaming at all. It would be a welcome deliverance from this nightmare I've been living through." 

Well, I was half-right about the screamer dying. When I exited the courtyard through the arched, open, entryway, I saw the screamer…and why she was screaming.

The first thing I saw was the lake, completely iced over in a pure, blanket of white except for one jagged, broken spot right in the center of it. That jagged, broken spot in the lake was where some girl, some stupid, stupid, foolish girl had plunged through the ice into the freezing lake. 

The girl was somehow still managing to flounder around wildly, flapping her arms around and screaming her head off for help.

Tom shook his head and smiled ironically as he paused to dip his quill into the inkwell. It wasn't a pleasant smile on his face as he went back to writing.

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Well, I knew I had to fulfill my prefect's duty. I whipped out my wand and muttered a quick spell on myself ("Wingardium Leviosa!") _to make myself levitate an inch above the icy surface of the lake as I walked out onto the lake. I walked on air as easily as I walked on the solid ground as I approached the floundering, screaming girl._

When I approached her, I noticed three things about her. One: She'd probably been trying to ice skate on the lake when she fell through. I could tell by the incisions in the ice leading up to the hole. Two: She looked like she was at least a fourth year. I was a fifth year. Three: I was probably her own hope of getting out of the freezing lake before she froze to death.

She looked up and saw me, then nearly stopped floundering about wildly as she cried out in relief, "I'm saved! Oh, I'm saved! Y-You! Y-y-you! Please! H-H-Help me! I'm f-freezing!"

_Now it was time for me to live up to my prefect's duty. I looked down at her and said, "No student is supposed to be outside the castle on snow days. It's dangerous, especially when you try to use those Muggle things called ice skates on the lake, as you have found out too late." I then smirked and said, "Ten points from- from- whatever your House is."_

Then I turned around and began to walk back inside. Oh yes, revenge is sweet, very sweet. True, perhaps she wasn't exactly the one that I wanted to get revenge on. But it was still revenge, revenge on the people who had ignored me, revenge on my Mudblood father, revenge on Muggles and Mudbloods everywhere. Why else would she be ice-skating if she wasn't a Mudblood? Ice-skating is a Mudblood sport.

She cried out in horror, "No! You- you c-c-can't l-leave me here! P-P-Please! D-Don't leave me here!" The sound of her choked sobs and splashing in the frigid water echoed through the icy atmosphere.

I wheeled on her and snapped, "You got yourself into this mess. You can get yourself out of it. It's none of my concern."

I started to walk away again. It was true. She was none of my concern. She was just a silly little girl who had gotten herself into this mess, plus she was a Mudblood. She was none of my concern. I would abandon her like my filthy Mudblood father abandoned my mother and me. 

The icy, sadistic, little smile vanished from his pale, chiseled, stony expression as he briefly stopped to rub his temples before he continued writing. His brow was furrowed and he frowned slightly as he recalled the situation while he wrote about it.

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Suddenly, she cried out, "T-TOM! Tom! P-Please! D-Don't leave me h-h-here to d-die!"

I froze and a pained expression crossed my face as I whirled around. Suddenly, I felt colder and more chilled than I had been before.

"What did you say?" I hissed at her. 

She gasped as she struggled to grasp the broken edge of the sheet of ice. She bobbled once in the water, desperately struggling to keep her head above water, and then her head vanished under the blackish blue waters.

Then I did something I'll probably regret for the rest of my life. I turned around and walked back to the jagged hole in the ice where I could still see her bobbling around under the water frantically.

I didn't go back because I cared if she lived or not. I didn't go back because I wanted fame for saving a girl from the ice. I didn't go back because I felt sorry for her.

No…I went back because in that one moment, she reminded me of…myself. Helpless, struggling, floundering, trying to stay alive, silently crying out to anyone, anyone at all, to notice me, to help me…I went back because her plea that was directed toward me was the same silent plea that I used to make when I was little in the orphanage. 

I used to cry myself to sleep, pleading with someone- anyone – to come rescue me, to take me away from that cold, desolate, loveless place, to save me from my own inner demons.

Slowly, I reached down, managed to grab her hand with both of my hands, and grunting with exertion, managed to drag her out of the water. She seemed to weigh twice as much as she probably did because she was completely satuarated with icy water. When I had pulled her out from the ice, I dropped her on the ice, whipped out my wand, and muttered, "Wingardium Leviosa!_"_

Her limp, trembling form was raised an inch above the unforgiving ice. I glared down at her.

"That will be twenty more points from whatever House you're from for bothering a prefect to go out of his way to get you out of your own predicament," I barked at her. "Now get inside the school before you freeze to death, and go to the nurse. Don't expect that I'll make an excuse for you, either, whatever your name-"

"Emily!" she gasped out through chattering teeth. 

"Fine. Get to the nurse right away, Emily, and thirty points from your House in all," I snapped. With a whirl of my cloak, I stomped away, furious with myself.

I couldn't even take my own revenge when it was handed to me on a platter. It was my own weakness that caused me to not take it. Weakness is a flaw. Weakness will never get you power. Without power, I will never be able to become the greatest wizard ever.

But I'll overcome my weakness. You'll see. I won't take pity with anyone ever. You'll see. I'll be the greatest wizard ever. No one, especially some stupid little girl, will stop me.

He was too weary to write anymore. The atmosphere of the common room was becoming too chilly even for his liking, and his eyes were becoming sore from squinting so much at the paper. Wearily, he concluded his diary entry with his usual signature. 

**__**

Tom Marvolo Riddle

Tom sighed, closed the diary, and put the stopper in his inkbottle as he rose from the armchair by the dying fire. Shivering and drawing his robes closer around him, he started for the Slytherin boys' dormitory.

Before he left however, he turned to look back at the smouldering, dying fire. His mouth twisted as he struggled with his own conscience. Then, grudgingly, he strode stiffly back over to the fireplace and tossed another log back on the fire. It crackled up behind him as he marched away to go back to his dormitory.

"That's it," he muttered. "That's the last thing I'll ever do for anyone else…"

[rule]

Whew…That took awhile to write. Please read and review, and I'll post the next chapter~ ^_~

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